Beating up on the Securities and Exchange Commission has become a New York favorite.

At an American Bankers Association Dinner, Diana Taylor – who is not only New York’s superintendent of banking, but also Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s girlfriend – had few kind words for her regulatory brethren.

Referring to the SEC as an “enforcement agency,” she said the commission “concentrates only on catching and prosecuting malefactors after the fact.”

Like it’s 1999

‘Tis the season for holiday parties, and Wall Street hasn’t forgotten how to throw them.

Houlihan Lokey Howard Zukin, the firm that specializes in fixing broken companies like WorldCom and Enron, hosted a blowout at Cipriani’s last week.

“Bankruptcy obviously had a pretty good year,” one wag said.

CSFB Equities took over the Supper Club, which was fun but not as gossip-inspiring as former equities head Mike Clark in drag as Cher at a benefit for children a few weeks ago.

J.P. Morgan’s departments are throwing bashes at venues like the ESPN Zone, and Suba, and have another scheduled at the Copacabana (which rival firm Morgan Stanley equities group already hit). Goldman Sachs derivatives group classsed it up at NYC hot spot Soho House.

“Tent, band – by industry standards, very well done,” said one attendee.

Clan destined

Feuds are mostly about getting the last word.

After a long-running family feud over the Milstein billions, the family’s settlement last week seemed like a legal miracle.

One faction, led by cousin Howard Milstein, got to buy out cousin Philip’s clan of its 45 percent stake in Emigrant Bancorp for $811 million. All office buildings, hotels and other properties got evenly divided, more or less.

But a day after the big truce was signed and checks were cut, cousin Philip couldn’t resist taking out a tombstone ad in The New York Times that proclaimed that his family branch members “are no longer affiliated with the bank in any capacity.”

Said a family source of a not-amused cousin Howard: “That’s like the Yankees losing the championship and then taking out ads the next day saying they’re no longer involved with the title.”

THE WEEK’S WINNERS & LOSERS

WINNERS:

Eliot Spitzer, crusading New York Attorney General, raised $2 million at a fundraiser to back his expected run for the governor’s job.

Michael Lynton, a longtime media exec and Time Warner insider, was tapped as chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Fabio Massimo Cacciatori, interim chief executive of Versace, presented a restructuring plan aimed at returning the debt-strapped the fashion house to profitability.

Stuart Varney, most recently the host of CNBC’s canceled “Wall Street Journal Editorial Board with Stuart Varney,” was hired to be a contributor and substitute host at Fox News.

LOSERS:

Peter Kann, the chairman and CEO of Dow Jones, ran into more trouble with his union, which reversed its support for a tentative new wage and benefit package.

Edward Kwalwasser, the New York Stock Exchange’s regulatory chief, was dragged into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s probe of floor-trading activities around trading in AIG shares.

Scott Sullivan, fallen WorldCom financial whiz, lost a bid to have his multibillion-dollar fraud case dismissed, and is now staring down the barrel at a February trial.

Andrew Hamerling, a former Banc of America telecom analyst, was fined and suspended by the NASD, which found he told select clients to short SBC Communications in spite of his own “buy” recommendation.